


Two for the Price of One

by thehaikubandit



Series: A Small Step For Man, A Kick in the Face for a Giant Monster [2]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013), The Martian (2015), The Martian - All Media Types, The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 12:50:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6957238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehaikubandit/pseuds/thehaikubandit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark is an idiot, and drifting makes inappropriate dreams REALLY AWKWARD!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two for the Price of One

**Author's Note:**

> So I just decided to put this up as a series, not an ongoing work. It is still very much got more coming (like, five at least) but this way there is no definite end.

One thing that never changed, kaiju or no kaiju was transport delays. Sometimes NASA got to borrow a PPDC plane, but not always. And that was how they ended up stuck in an airport waiting for a flight to Manila.

It was too short a time to justify a lounge or a hotel, but with five hours to wait they had to do something. Lewis wrote mission reports, Johanssen hacked the wifi and watched youtube and Vogel got into a heated skype conversation with a Russian chemist over something to do with pH. The other three, sensibly, decided to have a nap.

Unfortunately three hours in, they were woken up not by their flight arriving, but by Watney falling off the bench with a shout. Johanssen reached out to help him up, but he flinched away with a look of panic on his face.

“Sorry,” he said. “Bad dream.”

They didn't question it further, and after some time he got up from his hunched position on the floor and wandered off mumbling something about coffee.

Mark Watney was a liar. He had not been having a bad dream, but rather one of the best sex dreams of his life. The problem lay with who it was about. Not only did Lewis' threats towards anyone who so much as looked at Johanssen bring themselves firmly to mind, he also had a feeling Beck wouldn't appreciate it. Even if he had been involved.

One continent and ten coffees later Mark chalked it up to the drift. Which pilots hadn't had a weird sex dream about each other? They shared minds, it had to happen. He did pity the family teams though, that would be even worse.

It was after the dreams continued for a week he got worried. Not only was this whole experience leaving him very tense and... frustrated, but also guilty as hell. He couldn't be sure who he would drift with next, and this could get ugly.

Lewis would kill him, Martinez would laugh at him and Vogel would give him a look that said “I am seriously judging you but am too nice a person to say so”. But Beck and Johanssen would be even worse. He didn't think they would ever speak to him again.

If he was being really, truly honest with himself it was only the guilt that made them dreams he dreaded. And that was what really scared him. That he actually had feelings for the two of them.

Then, the inevitable happened. With the inevitable being a giant monster.

Lewis called for him and Beck in Hermes and Johanssen and Vogel in Ares. Mark decided on the lesser evil and chose death over Beck never speaking to him again. He went and spoke to Lewis.

Her reaction was pleasantly mild. When he finally managed to spit out the line “I keep having sex dreams about Beck and Johanssen and there's no way I can ever drift with them again” she just put her head in her hands and sighed.

“Of course you are.”

“You're a little less shocked than I thought you would be,” said Mark. “Also much less angry.”

“Watney,” she said. “I've been drifting with you off and on for nine months, I know how you feel about them,”

“Oh good, can you explain it to me then?” Then he suddenly had a thought. “Wait! Shit! They don't know do they?”

“No,” said Lewis. Mark breathed out in premature relief, because the next thing she did was use the intercom to say “Vogel to the Commander's office.”

“Can't I just sit this one out?” he begged.

“Martinez and I are on rest after the last fight,” Lewis said. “It's either Vogel, Johanssen or Beck, take your pick.”

“I chose letting the kaiju win.”

He was spared being yelled at because Vogel appeared.

“Right,” she said. “Watney, you tell Vogel why you will be drifting with him in Hermes now. I am not risking him getting so shocked in the drift you both die. I'm going to tell the other two the new plan.”

Mark told Vogel. Vogel gave him a look that said “I am seriously judging you but am too nice a person to say so”.

“See I knew you were going to do that,” said Mark.

“Do what?” asked Vogel.

“Give me that look.”

“I am not giving you any look, I am just looking at you.”

“Can you use your spectrometry skills to detect the bullshit you just tried to feed me?”

“And you just had a bad dream while we were waiting for a plane. Which one of us is the liar?”

Vogel had him there.

“Fine,” said Mark. “Let's just go suit up.”

“Alright,” said Vogel. “But can we please agree to use the fall back. There are things that I would prefer not to see.”

The fall backs had been brought in for emergencies, but they were usually used for situations like this. They were especially useful the drift after Martinez had had a visit from his wife. The thinking was, while they could all drift with each other, they wouldn't have the same bond a regular pair would. So they each had something they could do together in their minds to ensure the drift remained strong. Things like reciting a poem, the bones of the body, or in this case, the periodic table.

_Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Berylium…_

The two jaegers headed out to meet the kaiju, a rather fast Cat. Three. Hermes reached it and engaged first, and they were backed up by Ares when it tried to get past and continue towards land.

Ares hit it with a blast from its plasma cannon and Hermes followed up with three swift punches.

“Hemes we're ready to blast it again.”

Beck's voice came through their speaker and poor Vogel got a flash of bodies from the drift. Mark focused harder on elements.

_...Yttrium, Zirconium, Niobium, Molybdenum…_

The kaiju made a break past them and they raced around to head it off again. But it was too close now.

“You're within the miracle mile jaegers, push it back before you kill it.”

Hermes and Ares both fought to drive it back out to sea. Ares pulling its punches slightly to avoid spilling any kaiju blood. Hermes gave the kaiju several shocks with the electric prods it had built onto its wrists. It was a running joke that the designers behind the NASA jaegers were a bunch of nerds.

… _Bismuth, Polonium, Astatine, Radon…_

“And you're over the line. Ares, light it up.”

Ares delivered three more blows from its plasma cannon. Hermes finished it with a final blast.

~~~~~~

Mark made another drift with Vogel, two with Martinez, and one rendition of I will survive with Lewis before she made him deal with it properly. It may have also been because he had been dreaming about them for three months now and was starting to get very distracted, even drifting with other people.

“You either tell them, or I make you drift with one of them, they find out, and you die knowing that you made one of them bury the other when you both get killed by a kaiju.”

“This is because I forgot the lyrics to Waterloo isn't it?”

Lewis hit him with a stick. He really should have known better than to argue while sparring with her. Or at all.

In the end, it was Johanssen who forced his hand.

She turned up at his room one night with Beck, a bottle of tequila, and rather worryingly what looked like salt and limes. 

"Watney we are going to get very drunk,” she told him. “And then you are going to tell us what we did to upset you.”

“I have no idea at all what you mean, and on another note I'm giving up alcohol for Lent.”

“It's August,” said Beck. “Also you have a beer in your hand.”

“I'm terrible at religion.”

“Does that have anything to do with the fact you're an atheist?” asked Johanssen, the two of them pushing past him and into his room.

“Maybe,” Mark admitted.

After they had all had two shots she glared at him. She wasn't very good at glaring, but she tried her best anyway. 

“Why aren't you talking to us?” she asked.

“Or drifting with us?” added Beck.

“So, if I tell you can you promise me something?” asked Mark.

“Yes,” they said together. He had a feeling they would be this crazily in sync even without the drift.

“Please don't stop talking to me. I mean, it's bad, but I really don't want you to not talking to me. I risked death and disco because of this.”

“We promise,” Beck said. “Just spit it out already.”

“I maybe had a tiny, no big deal, sex dream about um, well, us.”

“Just the one?” Johanssen asked, sounding surprisingly disappointed. Beck for some reason was laughing hysterically on the floor. 

“What the hell did you put in this tequila Johanssen?” said Mark. “He's usually not the light weight...”

Beck sat up and tried to look serious, but had to put a hand over his mouth to stifle the sporadic giggle.

“Just the one?” Johanssen repeated.

“Maybe it was well, most nights for the past three months.”

“Were they good dreams at least?”

Mark was confused. 

“Why aren't you angry?

Beck whispered in her ear. Johanssen laughed, coughed and then blushed. It was an interesting combination.

“You may not be the only one who has been dreaming along those lines,” said Beck. And then he leaned over and kissed Mark. Mark enjoyed kissing Beck a lot. Like, for at least a good five minutes a lot. Until he remembered where he was, broke off, and looked at Johanssen in complete panic.

Given that she seemed to have a hand between her legs he guessed she was in favour of them kissing. 

“My turn,” she said, and proceeded to clamber over Beck and kiss him until he couldn't breath properly.

One night of tequila body shots later, many of Mark's dreams had literally come true, and a few things he forgot to dream had happened as well. 

And if he was greeted by a shout of “About time” from Martinez the next morning it was a small price to pay. 


End file.
